Unique health ID numbers could reduce medical errors, increase patient privacy

According to a new study from the RAND Corporation (with data provided by a consortium of health IT companies, including Cerner, CPSI, Intel, IBM, Microsoft, MISYS, Oracle and Siemens) – “Creating a unique patient identification number for every person in the United States would facilitate a reduction in medical errors, simplify the use of EMRs and help protect patient privacy”

I know what you are thinking of, its a “no brainer” but hear me out. For those who are new to implementing healthcare informatics solutions (especially HIS or EMR) on a large scale / national wide basis, the benefits might not be so obvious to them.

I’m not going to steal the thunder from the author, instead, I take this opportunity to invite you (the reader) to spend a minute or two on the original article and be reminder why sometimes, newbies still ask for clarification of a unique identifier 🙂

Read the original article here.